Why are there so many really bad "sound guys"?

[VelvetGeorge]

Great point. I've had lots of great sound experiences that started out with a couple shots or a couple free joints. We usually had percussion, so there was always some pot heads around to go get the soundguy high.

George

[marshman]

So, I guess I'm just small taters as I've never gigged with a soundman. I bought (what I believe to be a good) little PA system that I use for vocals. It has sufficient inputs to mic the drums, which we've done a few times, mainly because I have built a 4-panel plexiglass drumshield, through which we pull a line to the snare/ hi hat and the bass drum, but barely use. We discovered that the shield helped a lot in keeping the drums outta the vocals, and therefore out of the monitors and mains. The drums were still plenty loud enough behind the shield. Never had to mic/reinforce my bass rig. We've mic'd the guitars, but usually keep them down really low in the mix as we don't really want to turn them down at all, either.

The problem I have is getting the vocals to balance out nicely. My sis does quite a bit of our singing, and her voice just gets lost inthe mix. I'd love to be able to turn her up, but she's right at the cusp of feedback by the end of the 2d set. Is there an EQ tweak that might help her voice stand out? She has a naturally thick voice, deep, not a high/squeal type of thing. We do quite well in rehearsal, but most rooms seem to swallow her up.

I keep the PA head on top of my bass rig, since if anyone is gonna have a chance to let go of the neck for a sec, it's me. Any recommendations?

Help me not be a bad sound guy!!!

[NitroLiq]

Maybe this'll help you out a bit:

http://www.trinitysoundcompany.com/eq.html
http://www.recordingeq.com/EQ/req0400/OctaveEQ.htm

[flemingmras]

Well, I will say this about live PA vs. having the whole mix come straight off the stage. It's the difference between a professionally done act and a garage band respectively. The reason for running everything through the PA is for a very clean and accurate reproduction of the tone that everyone in the band already has, but with LOTS more punch.

However....(comma, pausing for effect...)

The ones that tell the guitar players to turn down, there are two reasons for this. Either A, the guitar player simply has WAAAAAAAY too much treble/presence in their tone(a lot of these younger kids nowadays for some reason like that thin, brittle tone) or B, that's their way of saying "Hey, I'm a cheap ass and my system doesn't have enough power to get over your amp and still make the vocals cut through". Option B is the problem 50% of the time, but the other 50% I'm dealing with punk kids that don't know what real tone is, and by the time they get up to stage volume, the high end is melting my face off.

Jon

[flemingmras]

So, I guess I'm just small taters as I've never gigged with a soundman. I bought (what I believe to be a good) little PA system that I use for vocals. It has sufficient inputs to mic the drums, which we've done a few times, mainly because I have built a 4-panel plexiglass drumshield, through which we pull a line to the snare/ hi hat and the bass drum, but barely use. We discovered that the shield helped a lot in keeping the drums outta the vocals, and therefore out of the monitors and mains. The drums were still plenty loud enough behind the shield. Never had to mic/reinforce my bass rig. We've mic'd the guitars, but usually keep them down really low in the mix as we don't really want to turn them down at all, either.

The problem I have is getting the vocals to balance out nicely. My sis does quite a bit of our singing, and her voice just gets lost inthe mix. I'd love to be able to turn her up, but she's right at the cusp of feedback by the end of the 2d set. Is there an EQ tweak that might help her voice stand out? She has a naturally thick voice, deep, not a high/squeal type of thing. We do quite well in rehearsal, but most rooms seem to swallow her up.

I keep the PA head on top of my bass rig, since if anyone is gonna have a chance to let go of the neck for a sec, it's me. Any recommendations?

Help me not be a bad sound guy!!!

Try taking some lows out of her vocals. Then you can give her a little more gain on the mic. Also, she HAS to project. If she doesn't, there's not much else you can do beyond that point.

Jon

[Myopic Void...]

Well, I will say this about live PA vs. having the whole mix come straight off the stage. It's the difference between a professionally done act and a garage band respectively. The reason for running everything through the PA is for a very clean and accurate reproduction of the tone that everyone in the band already has, but with LOTS more punch.

I do not think anybody is suggesting that everything comes off the stage without some additional help. Obviously the vocals and drums. Venue size has to be taken into consideration. For large civic centers and like yes you will need to mic it up. I have see a large amount of film footage of acts such as the Yardbirds, Captain Beyond, Led Zeppelin etc playing smaller to medium venues with just the drums and vocals miked up. I do not consider them "garage bands".

It was not until Mr. Watkins "WEM" makers of the Copycat echo unit made the first PA in 69 that bands had a pro PA to use for larger shows. Bands where doing fine in small to medium venues until late 1969-70. Fleetwood Mac and the Rolling Stones were the first to employ the WEM system for larger shows.

I agree that most of the music you deal with at clubs is abismall S$%T. Bands play some god awful sounds with their new amps. But I suspect for some playerws on this forum who are using Metro and Marshall SLP amps are getting very very good tone and if they have a band with proper equipment and a good balance for the whole band then I see no reason to mic the bass or guitar and possibly certain drummers depending on their ability to project and their type of kit.

I think you need to add a C and a D.

C. you may have a power amp with power but if you getting run through cheap processing it will come out somewhat cheaper souding than your stage sound and not be a true representation of your sound.

D. They may have a world class PA gear (which I have never seen in a club) and not know what the heck they are doing which is often the case.



Cheers,

Eric

[mightymike]

How big of a PA power amp do you need to keep up with a couple plexis, and a sunn 300 watt bass amp?

[flemingmras]

Eric I couldn't have said that better. By "garage band" I was referring to bands that don't get the drums mic'ed. Their drummer will either be like "Oh I hit them hard enough" or the soundguy will be like "Just hit them harder", but we don't mic a drum kit for more "volume" per se. The volume kinda comes with it, but the reason I mic a kit is for a different sound. An unmic'ed kit has more of a "hollow" sound whereas a well mic'ed kit has more of a "solid" sound with a lot more "punch".

I have done mixes where all I mic are drums and vocals, but this requires guitar and bass amps that are dialed in and sound great on their own. With one guitar bands where the amp is fine on its own, I'll mic the guitar, but pan the guitar completely over to the side opposite his amplifier to spread out the sound so that the guitar isn't coming all from one side.

Now...MY "club" system consists of a Mackie 1604VLZ Pro Mixer, a dbx DriveRack processor for my house graphic/crossover/alignment delay, 2 EV Gladiator 2 way mains(15" w/60/40 horn) and 2 Cerwin Vega EL36B "Earthquake" folded horn subs. The system is ran 3 way triamp w/mono subs, and I've got about 300 watts in reserve for each horn, 2000 watts in reserve for each 15 for the mids, and 1700 watts in reserve for each sub for a total of 8,000 watts in reserve. The reason for more power in reserve on the mids than the subs is because my mids are rated 400/800/1600(continuous/program/peak power) whereas the subs are rated 250/500/1000(continuous/program/peak power). And all my power amps are QSC PLX series. Now THAT'S my idea of a "club" system LOL.

And yes, I own 3 Metro heads myself and am well aware of the tone you get from these bad boyz. I won't use anything else.

[marshman]

NItro-liq--muchos gracias...I've copied them off to paper, from whence they will be read, re-read and generally perused for many days to come. sadly, that's how things work for me, but I don't mind too much. I enjoy reading almost as much as I enjoy jammin'.

Rock on!

[tubetramp]

In general after baring witness to a large assortment of nit wits ,wanna bes,people with wooden ears. first mistake is eq at all times ,they just totally lack instinct with middle range stuff.Lori quigley was the best ive ever seen ..hes done more big shows then just about any guy out there.chances are if youve seen anyone from, motly crue! to abba lol and many other big acts in the eightys.when hair and cocaine were big.in the land of flatop meth powered urbanknights .who knows whos good anymore.quigly could control a hundred thousand watts like we dial a car radio in.the side fill systems take a bit of witt.this is the ladder truck rear steering wheel for sound men.they have to have two sets of things goin on.its got to sound good around the act and its got to jive with the front system so there are two serious things to look at.its very impressive to see this at sound check.quig used white and pink noise as reference from side to side.example huge flood or waterfall comes from the left ....meets charging rhino with spiked condom on and runs the other way! the one thing i do know is it takes nerves of steel to deal with david lee roth in regards to sound.he does not miss much.the two worst slots with him are guitar and sound man.i am still very tight with daves former manager aka sound man aka man of a thousand faces.i think the only thing i found easy was to read a room in the old days .look at stage postion.listen to what aint doin what.there are some awful horrible ,rooms out there and plenty of matching would be fred dursts to go with it.basic trick once again if you think about it.is when greasin up your car,home, or guitar rig where do you set the parameters????????i will tell you what you will do even if you dont know your doing it.get the bass togethr first.midrange and treble are cheap commoditys and the more this gets pushed, is the best way to tell if youve got a sound man or a con man.in most cases for no reason except to accomadate some know it all tin ear.the bottom is going to break up the room in close parameters faster then any other frequency obviously.and in technical terms its going to go the furthest ,treble dies off very quickly as opposed to the lower twain.the first thing i do in a car stereo or rig or home unit or even computer is find out where the end of the line is for the bottom.then draw accordingly from the other frequencys.also i have a ton of amps.the ones that sound best regardless of make or model share one common thing,they have no midrange controls lol,midrange is set by a cap at such and such. a control is a real nightmare in the hands of hermann hatchblower the ninnyhammer.be very afraid of a guy with volume ,,,midrange and a rangemaster clone lol .any of us here would make good sound men.none of them out there would unless they passed the tramps crucable.they would run like little bitches.!

[JimiJames]

Yeah Baby ! This is a great thread. And TT, your absofuckinlutely right, They ARE Little Bitches. I wanted to quote all you guys on this and give my 2 cents...

Never...I mean NEVER have I played on a circuit stage where I felt I should compliment the guy on the board.
This thread definitely has touched a nerve with 99% of the guys and to include me.
I spent hours upon hours dollar ontop of dollar to get "MY TONE" the way I want it.
I learned real fast that this "turn it down" crap was gonna be short lived.
In my previous guitar life I took action as to what I need to keep these sound guys stifled.
I picked up a killer mike and (instead of my 4x12 bottom) picked up 2 1965a's 2x12's (I also used a Boogie HalfBack at times)
The mike was a BeyerDynamic M201nc. This mike has one of the flatest curves out there (unlike the Shure sm57 which I love).
Whatever it heard it replicated. So, what was coming out of my amp would be going through the PA.
I was ready for Mr. Jagoff. I would give him whatever his BitchAss needed in one cab and the other cab would be ALL ME !
Nuthin' like turnin' around and getting that "Hendrix" Feedback" as earlier stated !
Turn me down now, Einstein !
I know when I'm havin' a good show 'cause I had the mojo goin' down on stage. Everybody feeds of that and the crowd knows it !

I have a Shit more to say but in conclusion ... FUCK YOU SoundBitches !


Jimmie K.

[10kDA]

I once was in a band that rehearsed in the sound guy's basement. When we learned cover tunes, we would put the records (this was the early 80s) on his stereo rig and figure out the parts. We all made comments at various times about how midrange-y the sound of his rig was; we came to the conclusion that his stylus must have been completely worn to a nub. Sorry, digital-age readers, but this was a BIG DEAL in the all-analog days. Anyway, the monitor feed was always fine when we gigged, so we never really questioned what we sounded like out front. Well, we recorded a show from a feed from the board and, sure enough, the playback revealed the sound getting out to the crowd sounded exactly like the sound guy's stereo rig.
Fast forward to a gig last summer, at a large established outdoor venue and a sound rig and operator with a great rep from other performers. He asked me how I wanted my amp to sound (!) and I told him "Just like the sound coming out of the speaker." I was using a Marshall 4203 Artist 1x12" open back combo and I told him if he could spare a channel to mike my amp from the back as well as the front - an old trick I used years ago. He did, and remarked later that he had never done that before and it really made the amp jump out. I got a lot of compliments from the audience on my sound that evening, thanks to a sound guy that was willing to try something different and also really knew how to use his rig.

10kDA